


Marine Echo

by rusblk



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Holodecks/Holosuites, M/M, Post-Canon, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 11:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21299069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rusblk/pseuds/rusblk
Summary: Garak goes to a sea. He finds what he expected.
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Marine Echo

**Author's Note:**

> Translated from Korean.  
This is a songfic of "Marin Echo" - 八王子P x aika.  
Listen: https://youtu.be/d9z-8ag44aU

_As I look up above to the endless blue sky_

_I can feel my hair dancing with the sea breeze_

_Every time I hear the sound of the waves when they break_

_It's almost like listening to your lonely heart_

Garak stood by the seashore. Dark seawater became transparent as it approached the shore and shattered into bubbles. Waves retreated, leaving white trails on wet sand. Something tickled his toe. It was a crustacean species called a 'crab'. Garak picked it up carefully. The crab squirmed for a while and then stopped. Garak laid it on his palm and touched it with a finger. It didn't move as if it has given up and was pushed without resistance. He put it back down. The crab ran fast when a timely wave hit it, and was dragged into the ocean.

The fine grains of sand clung to his feet as he walked. It was turbid, unlike the yellow sand of his homeland. The land bore numerous pores. Tiny beings emerged from the holes and didn't. The seemingly quiet shore was busy with micro movements. Garak walked until he reached a certain point.

He had been here. It was one of the Earth holograms Bashir invited him.

* * *

  
  
Garak hasn't seen that kind of sea. Cardassian seas were in contact with dry desert, gulping sand endlessly. Terran mud flats taught him that salty, turbid, wet soil could bear life. While Garak enjoyed soft feels to his bare feet, Bashir stood facing the horizon as wind blew. The wind smelled fishy. Bashir said the smell was made during the process of microorganisms degrading other organisms. Water is the source of life on any planet. The ocean, a homeland for so many lives, was there radiating the smell of death.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Bashir said.

Garak inhaled deeply without answering. Rotten air filled his lungs. Surprisingly, the scent was not unpleasant. Rather, it was refreshing, like the image of life-filled ocean. Garak smiled at Bashir.

"It smells nice."

Bashir smiled back. He seemed older in times like this. It was because Garak saw him younger than his age. He was a physician. He lived long enough to know the cycle of life and death. Garak thought of the things he wanted to teach him. He worried about Bashir's ill-guided optimism. But no, it was not a result of his stupidity. He didn't lose hope, despite the number of deaths he saw. Garak tried to remember the last time he had hopeful dreams. He couldn't think of any.

And Garak thought about the things Bashir taught him. They were opposite beings. Garak was trapped at the station, Bashir used it as a springboard. Bashir talked about the importance of equality and freedom. His words were unfamiliar. Garak had thought he wouldn't change a bit, no matter how much Bashir speaks for the Federation ideals. But Garak was not dead. Every living thing changes. Garak didn't want to admit it, but as he occasionally faced moments of enlightenment, he was shaken.

This was one of those moments. Garak had to admit that there was a world even an old man like him didn't know. Bashir was a man who could show a new side of the vast universe. And the things he showed for the first time would be tightly attached to the memory. Every time he smells the sea, Garak would think of Bashir. Memories of him were incorporated as a component of Garak's world.

Whether it was a curse or blessing, he did not know yet.

* * *

  
  
Garak stopped at a small rock. Bashir had written his and Garak's initials there.

* * *

  
  
Bashir wrote big letters on the sand and made a proud face. Garak asked.

"Do the letters have any meaning?"

Bashir shrugged.

"Nothing special. I used to write our names on the beach with my friends."

"Won't they be erased by waves?"

"If they didn't, I wouldn't have written them."

Garak gave Bashir an inquiring glance. Bashir continued.

"Just a few hundred years ago, the ocean was not this clean. It was so polluted by humans, recovery seemed impossible. But after garbages were gone, it cleared itself to the state we are looking now. People didn't have to put extra work into it. It was enough just not to pollute it."

"You mean the humans back then threw garbage into the ocean?"

"As you said, humans are foolish. It took a long time before we realized our faults."

"It's good to know that this sea is not only a hologram."

"Yes. I hope I could show you a real one."

Garak stared at Bashir's side. His long lashes swayed by the wind. They stood in the blows of cold air, watching the letters being washed in rushing waves. Soon the sand became smooth again with no sign of letters.

"Not a trace."

"You miss them?"

Bashir picked up a big piece of stone and placed it on the sand where the letters were.

"This way, the letters are gone but you will remember where they were."

Water was flooding in. Garak didn't think the stone will stay still at the bottom of the sea. He didn't want to point it out. He held the hand of the man at his side, and he locked their hands tightly.

* * *

The program ended there. He and Bashir didn't run the program again. Garak forgot about the sea for a long time. He didn't even know that Bashir was keeping the program. More than ten years later today, he ran it again just because he received a small package this morning. Inside the envelope with no sender written on it, was a data rod for holonovels. Garak took it and went downtown to a shop to run it.

He had no expectation of what to come. He smelled an unmistakable scent. Suddenly he was faced by a point in the past.

Cardassian memory doesn't distinguish the past and present. Everything that has passed is an unchangeable present. Memories in new locations are stored separately and changed landscapes act as buoys that isolate the past from now. Holograms capture moments. Garak saw the stone and two rows of footprints stamped in front of it. It created an illusion of seeing himself in the past from a step behind.

It took some effort to bring himself back to the present. He evened his breath and picked up the stone. He threw it into the ocean. The water has come up to the point where the stone was. The rising tide was swallowing the footprints one by one. Garak walked backwards enough to keep the water from reaching and sat on the sand. He watched the sea until the last footprint disappeared.


End file.
